Preamble:
I was at a club Saturday night with a few friends, relaxing and enjoying myself, when a gay guy started to hit on me. To be fair, gay guys in Beijing don't have the option of going to specific gay-clubs or gay-bars if they want to pick up other guys, because the Beijing government shut them all down in preparation for the olympics. At first, I thought he was just an outgoing guy, but it became pretty clear pretty quickly that he was trying to hit on me. I told him in my broken Chinese that I wasn't gay, and he should try somebody else. Perhaps half an hour later, as I was dancing, he came up to me and tried to do some gay dirty dancing. I told him once more that I really wasn't gay, and he should really fuck off. He had a couple friends with him, and I told them to keep him away from me. Perhaps another half an hour later, I went outside the club to make a phone call, and the guy sits down next to me. I tell him one last time to fuck off, he instead puts his arm around me, and I snap a bit. I punch him in the stomach, he doubles over, I knee him in the nose, he falls to the ground, and I yell at him in a probably incoherent mix of poor English and poor Chinese.
That's the bulk of the story, and how I've told it to my friends. I was at a club, minding my own business, having a good time, and this gay guy wouldn't leave me alone. After a whole bunch of warnings, I flipped out and punched him. It's true, but it doesn't really get to the heart of the matter. The fact is, as I walked out of the club to make my phone call, I saw the guy and his friends already out there. At this point, I had a whole bunch of options. I could have turned around, walked back into the club, and waited another ten minutes to make the call. I could have walked by them, around a corner, and made a phone call where they couldn't see me. Instead, I walked right past the group, and sat down on the bench which I'm pretty sure is expressly provided for people who need to make phone calls. The bench wasn't more than twenty feet away from the guy who had been hitting on me. As I walked by him, as I sat down on the bench, as I started dialing my friend's number, the whole time I was keenly aware that the gay guy was going to come, was going to try hitting on me once more, and I was going to end up punching him. I knew beforehand exactly how it was going to happen, could've avoided the confrontation in a whole bunch of ways, and yet I didn't. I didn't actually "snap," I was preparing myself for the fight before he had even sat down. When he pushed it just that little bit too far, I reacted barbarically and savagely. Why? Because I'm homophobic.
Now I'm not homophobic in your sterotypical redneck sense. I don't go out punching gay people regularly, I don't believe it's a sin to be gay, I've got my share of gay friends (I hate this "I'm not prejudiced! I've got friends who are _______!" defense), had I lived in California would have voted no to prop 8, etc. For the most part, I genuinely have no problem with gay people. Intellectually and as a concept, it's true. When a gay guy actively goes out of his way to make his sexuality my business, however, I get uncomfortable. This goes for one hell of an awkward and one-sided conversation about what gay sex was like (I'm still surprised it wasn't apparent I did not want the guy to share), it goes for (admittedly non-explicit) pictures of cartoon cowboys having gay sex in Atlas' signature, it goes for another really ridiculously awkward conversation in which a gay member of my swim team went around rating all the guys' anatomy, and so on.
This is my situation. There are plenty of excuses for my behavior in any specific case, which I am mostly restraining from offering, because it gets away from the central issue of the fact that gay guys make me uncomfortable (and now, in one case, violent). I open this topic in the hope that people will both discuss their own latent prejudices (perhaps the bigotry of low expectations?), or at the very least think a little bit about it. I know for a long time in my life I was convinced I was absolutely angelic, containing no prejudice whatsoever, but it was as ridiculous for me as it would be for anyone else. I purposely wrote prejudice in the thread title so as not to constrain the conversation to homophobia. I doubt I'll find anyone here who will freely admit to being even slightly racist, but I hold out some hope for sexists.
I was at a club Saturday night with a few friends, relaxing and enjoying myself, when a gay guy started to hit on me. To be fair, gay guys in Beijing don't have the option of going to specific gay-clubs or gay-bars if they want to pick up other guys, because the Beijing government shut them all down in preparation for the olympics. At first, I thought he was just an outgoing guy, but it became pretty clear pretty quickly that he was trying to hit on me. I told him in my broken Chinese that I wasn't gay, and he should try somebody else. Perhaps half an hour later, as I was dancing, he came up to me and tried to do some gay dirty dancing. I told him once more that I really wasn't gay, and he should really fuck off. He had a couple friends with him, and I told them to keep him away from me. Perhaps another half an hour later, I went outside the club to make a phone call, and the guy sits down next to me. I tell him one last time to fuck off, he instead puts his arm around me, and I snap a bit. I punch him in the stomach, he doubles over, I knee him in the nose, he falls to the ground, and I yell at him in a probably incoherent mix of poor English and poor Chinese.
That's the bulk of the story, and how I've told it to my friends. I was at a club, minding my own business, having a good time, and this gay guy wouldn't leave me alone. After a whole bunch of warnings, I flipped out and punched him. It's true, but it doesn't really get to the heart of the matter. The fact is, as I walked out of the club to make my phone call, I saw the guy and his friends already out there. At this point, I had a whole bunch of options. I could have turned around, walked back into the club, and waited another ten minutes to make the call. I could have walked by them, around a corner, and made a phone call where they couldn't see me. Instead, I walked right past the group, and sat down on the bench which I'm pretty sure is expressly provided for people who need to make phone calls. The bench wasn't more than twenty feet away from the guy who had been hitting on me. As I walked by him, as I sat down on the bench, as I started dialing my friend's number, the whole time I was keenly aware that the gay guy was going to come, was going to try hitting on me once more, and I was going to end up punching him. I knew beforehand exactly how it was going to happen, could've avoided the confrontation in a whole bunch of ways, and yet I didn't. I didn't actually "snap," I was preparing myself for the fight before he had even sat down. When he pushed it just that little bit too far, I reacted barbarically and savagely. Why? Because I'm homophobic.
Now I'm not homophobic in your sterotypical redneck sense. I don't go out punching gay people regularly, I don't believe it's a sin to be gay, I've got my share of gay friends (I hate this "I'm not prejudiced! I've got friends who are _______!" defense), had I lived in California would have voted no to prop 8, etc. For the most part, I genuinely have no problem with gay people. Intellectually and as a concept, it's true. When a gay guy actively goes out of his way to make his sexuality my business, however, I get uncomfortable. This goes for one hell of an awkward and one-sided conversation about what gay sex was like (I'm still surprised it wasn't apparent I did not want the guy to share), it goes for (admittedly non-explicit) pictures of cartoon cowboys having gay sex in Atlas' signature, it goes for another really ridiculously awkward conversation in which a gay member of my swim team went around rating all the guys' anatomy, and so on.
This is my situation. There are plenty of excuses for my behavior in any specific case, which I am mostly restraining from offering, because it gets away from the central issue of the fact that gay guys make me uncomfortable (and now, in one case, violent). I open this topic in the hope that people will both discuss their own latent prejudices (perhaps the bigotry of low expectations?), or at the very least think a little bit about it. I know for a long time in my life I was convinced I was absolutely angelic, containing no prejudice whatsoever, but it was as ridiculous for me as it would be for anyone else. I purposely wrote prejudice in the thread title so as not to constrain the conversation to homophobia. I doubt I'll find anyone here who will freely admit to being even slightly racist, but I hold out some hope for sexists.
